Image by J. Stephen Conn via Flickr
If I were a professor considering a position at a new university, the first thing I think I'd read after the job posting would be the prospective institution's grievance policy. That document can tell me and anyone else who cares to look an awful lot about the level of control exerted by a university's administrators. To be clear, the vast majority of policies leave the final decision for any grievance to the president, but no president particularly likes to overturn a grievance panel's decision because it sends an overt "who cares?" message back to the faculty. Accordingly, some institutions will leave no stone unturned in the quest to control the decision before it gets to the prez. Some will even push the envelope of the law in the process. Sam Houston State University's grievance policy is a fine case in point, so fine that it ranks as the worst policy I have ever run across in my former role as a TFA faculty advocate. I'll highlight "best" worst parts below:
DEFINING AWAY GRIEVANTS
Paragraph 2.01b defines "faculty" thusly: "Faculty: The professional full-time teaching staff holding tenure or tenure-track status; interim faculty; and librarians holding the same faculty status."
That definition cuts adjunct faculty right out of the picture, eh? For better or for worse, and mostly worse, universities are relying more and more on adjunct professors because they are so much cheaper: lower salaries, no benefits--heck, they probably don't even have a place to park. If one of them does muster the chutzpah to complain outside of any policy's authority, administrators can just toss them aside and call up another hungry adjunct, the academic equivalent of a day laborer.
CONTROLLING THE HEARING PANEL
Paragraph 2.02a provides for administrators to sit on the panels. That's a little unusual--and worrisome. Readers who are faculty members need to think back to the last time they were having a frank discussion with another faculty member and then an administrator walked into the room. Just what effect did that have on the conversation?
Paragraph 2.02d says that the president will select the chair of the Faculty Grievance Board (the pool of people from which hearing panel members will be selected for individual grievances), which is bad enough when the board could be left alone to select its own chair; however, paragraph 2.03b is the clincher. It reads as follows:
The chair of the FGC shall serve as a non-voting member and chair of the GHC and shall be responsible for calling meetings of the GHC, notifying committee members and other parties to the grievance of meetings, receiving information from parties to the grievance, maintaining decorum during meetings, transmitting all final committee decisions to the University President, transmitting final decisions to recipients named in this document, and safeguarding all working documents and records of committee proceedings in conformity with state records retention law.
In other words, the president's man runs the show--every time. Oh, it says that the chair is a non-voting member of the hearing panel or "Grievance Hearing Committee," as SHSU calls it, but as any city councilman will tell you, the real work--the arm twisting, the pleading, the wheedling and promising--goes on behind the scenes. Votes are simply a manifestation of an unseen, backstage wrestling match, and the SHSU's chair is in utter and complete control of the process. Oh, and did I mention that the disputants can't disqualify the chair according to the policy?
SILENCING THE PARTIES
Now, gentle readers, you've got to love this part in paragraph 3.02b:
In the case of a formal hearing, any party to the grievance may be accompanied by a colleague or counsel of choice, or by a union representative that does not claim the right to strike, who will serve only in an advisory capacity.
What this says is that if an attorney or, say, a TFA representative shows up, that person can whisper in the grievant's ear, but he can't talk at the hearing on behalf of his client. Oh, really? Let's look at the law now, Texas Government Code 617.005, which says,
Sec. 617.005. EFFECT OF CHAPTER. This chapter does not impair the right of public employees to present grievances concerning their wages, hours of employment, or conditions of work either individually or through a representative that does not claim the right to strike.
By law, faculty members have the right to present their grievances "individually or THROUGH a representative" [emphasis mine]. SHSU's policy strips faculty members of this crucial right under the law. In my opinion, administrators there are setting themselves up for a magnificent lawsuit someday.
At the risk of sounding like an infomercial: "But wait! There's more!"
Perhaps the very "best," worst part of the policy is that only the hearing panel can ask questions. The two parties can't ask each other a thing according to paragraph 3.03b:
Those making oral presentations before the committee may only address the committee. No direct questioning of the grievant by those who are the subject of the grievance or their counsel, nor vice versa, will be permitted.
So, to sum up, when SHSU faculty members are lucky enough to fall into one of the categories that actually is eligible for a hearing, they get a panel chaired by the president's pick and one with a couple of administrators on it to boot. Their representative won't be allowed to represent them, nor will they be allowed to ask questions of the opposing party. Any questions about who's in control at SHSU?
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=af59addc-1231-47e7-9ccf-8f0c06a182c5)
Recent Comments